Keep on thinking….

worries

I met my wife 7 years ago. I had moved to Southampton with my mum when I was 21 from my home in London. The reasons for my move are for another blog. So I met my wife down here, my mum moved back to London and I essentially stayed down here.

This is fine and I don’t regret this one bit. I have a great life, job, friends etc. But I drastically miss my family.

This became even more apparent to me last night.

All week, my little girl and wife have been suffering with a horrid cold/flu thing. I’ve had a head cold, but nothing drastic. We had planned for months to go up to London for my step-dads 60th birthday. All my mums side of the family were going to be there. This doesn’t often happen and I was really looking forward to spending the time with them. But due to my girls being ill, we couldn’t go.

At the time, I consoled myself with the fact that we were too poorly to go, and that was the case. But I’ve just seen some pictures on Facebook of the party last night, and it really hits home how I miss my mum, my family and being with them (even though they drive me insane!)

Unfortunately, money is so tight at the moment that going to visit them regularly is just not an option. £30 round trip in petrol a week is just crazy. But I need to figure something out. I want my daughter growing up knowing her family and I want them to be a bigger part of my life.

Maybe one day we can all live closer, or win the lottery so traveling isn’t such an issue!

My wife started a new job two weeks ago after leaving her last job after over 9 years. This was due to the company being totally unreasonable in relation to her going back to work part-time after having our daughter (there were other issues relating to the decision to leave, but I won’t post about them just yet, you’ll find out why later). The new job is perfect as it’s working for a children’s soft play company (my wife loves children), it’s part-time hours and she can take my little girl with her to work one of the three days. Money isn’t fantastic, but it’s enough when put with mine to live on.

The problem is my wife came down with this stomach bug Monday and had to call in sick today. This worries me very much! I have no problem with her being sick, but what worries me is she’s only been there a week and I don’t want her current company thinking she a bad employee. In her old job, she had less than a week off sick in nearly 10 years!

I’m terrified that she will lose this job and leave us with no way to pay our bills. I did get an e-mail from my previous boss last week asking if I wanted my old job back. I was tempted purely on the money basis as they’d pay a lot more, but I turned it down when I remembered how they treated me. Wondering if I made the right decision now.

I’m not blaming my wife at all. She is amazing and works so hard at being a mum, this new job and also trying to get her photography business off the ground, but as the man of the family, it’s my job to provide and I’m terrified I won’t be able to do this.

Now my little girls nursery has just called and said she’s got the same stomach bug (poor little angel). It never rains but it pours!